Features in the Hindi Language
- Hindi is written in the "Devnagari" script. Written from left to right the script has no capital letters. Each Devnagari script character represents a syllable, not the alphabet. The Hindi alphabet has 11 vowels, 33 consonants and many conjunct and semi vowel consonants.
- The Hindi language draws its colloquial vocabulary from Urdu and its advanced Hindi register vocabulary for official, formal circles from the Sanskrit language. Hindi vocabulary shares genetic similarities with Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Assamese, Oriya and Bengali languages.
- Hindi has short and long vowels. During language usage, vowels may take the consonant independent "swara" form or the dependant "matra" form pronounced in association with consonants.
Each Hindi word's consonant component is pronounced with the "a" sound following it. Consonants occurring at the word's end are silent. The k-group Hindi consonants have velar sounds. The c-consonant group sounds are produced by raising the tongue to the roof of the mouth.
The Hindi dental "t" consonants are pronounced by letting the tongue tip touch the upper front teeth's back. The Hindi retroflex "t" consonants' articulation requires rolling the tongue tip upwards against the palate and releasing it. Labial "p" consonant sounds are produced using both lips. - Hindi has no definitive article and follows a singular and plural number system.
The masculine gender Hindi nouns may end in "aa" in singular and "e" in plural; some remain unchanged.
The feminine nouns end in "ii" or "iya" in singular and with "iyaan" in plural form. Some end with "en" in plural.
Invariable Hindi adjectives remain unchanged. Inflect Hindi adjectives change their endings to "aa" and "e" if the nouns they modify are masculine singular and masculine plural respectively. They acquire "ii" ending if the noun is feminine singular or plural.
English preposition-like Hindi words or "postpositions" follow their related words. They include "men" implying in, "par" implying on, "tak" implying upto and "se" implying from, with or by and "ko" implying to and at.
Hindi nouns change from direct to oblique grammatical case when followed by postpositions. Oblique noun qualifying adjectives also acquire oblique usage.
Hindi sentence syntax follows subject-object-verb structure.
Hindi verbs have infinitive endings of "naa". The verb matches the subject's gender, person and number. Verb forms vary with tense and action type to convey situation semantics. - Hindi vocabulary incorporates 3-tier honorifics for informal, familiar and formal uses. The Hindi second person pronoun forms include the very informal "tu" form, "tum" used in friend circle registers and the formal form "aap." Other Hindi honorific words include "jii" and "sahib." "Namastay" means greetings. "Shrukriya" and "dhanyavad" mean thank you.